Senate Democrats near 60-vote majority

WASHINGTON – In a stunning turnabout in political loyalties, Sen. Arlen Specter announced yesterday that he was leaving the Republican Party to become a Democrat, bolstering President Barack Obama at a pivotal moment for his policy agenda and further marginalizing Republicans on Capitol Hill.

The Pennsylvania lawmaker acknowledged that the decision was driven by his intense desire to win a sixth term next year. It came after Specter and his political advisers concluded over the weekend that he could not win a Republican primary against a conservative challenger, particularly in light of his vote for Obama's economic stimulus package.

“I am not prepared to have my 29-year record in the United States Senate decided by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate – not prepared to have that record decided by that jury,” said Specter, 79, a moderate who has long been known for breaking with his party.

Republicans were knocked off-stride by the announcement, and many had no warning from Specter, who met a polite but chilly reception when he entered a party luncheon to inform his colleagues. They immediately labeled it, in the words of Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who heads the party's campaign arm, a naked act of “political self-preservation,” and they sought to portray it as an isolated case growing out of Pennsylvania's political environment.

The defection of Specter creates the potential that Democrats will control 60 votes in the Senate if Al Franken of Minnesota prevails this summer in the court fight over last November's election, a prospect that appears increasingly likely.

If Democrats could hold those votes together, Republicans would be unable to mount filibusters as Congress moves into the critical phase of trying to enact Obama's ambitious agenda on health care and energy.

Democrats warned that it would remain a formidable challenge to keep their ranks together. Specter said he would not be an automatic Democratic vote, though he will be pulled in that direction because he now faces the prospect of running in a Democratic primary.

Specter was one of three Republican senators to vote in favor of the stimulus package this year. He is a supporter of abortion rights and expanded embryonic stem cell research, and he opposed a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. He also voted to authorize the war in Iraq, backed President George W. Bush's Supreme Court nominees, favors school vouchers and has taken many other positions that put him at odds with most Democrats.

Specter said he had received commitments from Obama and Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, to support him in any primary, backing intended to deter Democratic challengers. Obama was scheduled to endorse Specter this morning at a joint appearance.

Administration officials said Obama had been handed a note from an aide at 10:25 a.m. yesterday in his daily economic briefing. The note, said a senior administration official, read, “Specter is announcing he is changing parties.” Seven minutes later, Obama reached Specter by telephone.

In a brief conversation, the president said, “You have my full support,” said the official, who heard the phone call. The president added that Democrats were “thrilled to have you.”

White House officials said Vice President Joe Biden had been at the center of the effort to woo Specter, who began his political career as a Democrat in Philadelphia but has been a Republican for 43 years. The officials said a switch had been the subject of years of bantering and discussion between the two men – who often sat together while riding the Amtrak train home. The conversation turned more earnest after Biden lobbied Specter to vote with the White House on the stimulus bill this year.

One adviser to Biden said that since that day 10 weeks ago, Biden and Specter had spoken 14 times – including six meetings in person and eight telephone conversations. In each case, White House officials said, Biden argued that the Republican Party had increasingly drifted away from Specter since the election and that ideologically, he was closer to the Democratic Party.

Some Republicans bade good riddance to Specter, who was badly trailing in polls against former Rep. Pat Toomey, who also once led the Club for Growth, a group of fiscal conservatives who have financed primary challenges against Republicans they consider to have strayed too far from conservative principles.

Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, did not mince words, saying Specter “left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record.”

Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, a Republican who also supported the administration's economic stimulus plan, said Specter's view that the party had shifted too far to the right reflected the increasingly inhospitable climate for moderates in the Republican Party.

Snowe said national Republican leaders were not grasping that “political diversity makes a party stronger, and ultimately we are heading to having the smallest political tent in history.”

Other Republicans said Democrats were on the verge of unchecked power in Washington, a theme Republicans have pushed in an effort to turn political weakness into a strength.

Specter, who sat on the Democratic side of the dais during a committee hearing yesterday afternoon, said he had been assured that his seniority would be recognized by his new party, which would put him in line to jump over some Democrats for subcommittee chairmanships after the 2010 midterm elections.

Specter has angered many Democrats over the years with his positions, particularly his support of Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. But he said that with his record of 10,000 votes cast over almost 30 years, he had done something to anger virtually everyone.

“I don't expect everybody to agree with all my votes,” he said. “I don't agree with them all myself at this point.”